Feature News

VILLAGE OF TIKI ISLAND, Texas, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- With the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Ike fast approaching, many residents of the Texas Gulf Coast are extremely thankful to have returned to their homes after making repairs wrought by the Category 2 storm, which hit land in Galveston on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008, shortly after 2 a.m. Central Daylight Time. Many others are still settling insurance claims and rebuilding. Still others have lost everything.

Ginger and Neal Glass are among the lucky ones who were able to repair extensive damages and move back into their waterfront residence in the Village of Tiki Island as early as May 2009. Their home is situated alongside a canal in Galveston County just a short drive north of Galveston Island and about 50 miles south of downtown Houston.

Like thousands of other residents of coastal Texas who braced for Hurricane Ike's landfall, the Glasses evacuated to safety. When they were able to return to survey the damages about two weeks later, they found that their power boat tied up at their dock remarkably escaped major damage from the 14-foot storm surge and 150 mile-per-hour winds. However, the first floor covered washout level with an informal kitchen and outdoor entertainment bar were destroyed, the roof of their home was ripped off in sections, and many windows in the upper level main living area were blown out.

Damages to the roof of the Glass home allowed rain water to gush into the kitchen and other living areas on the upstairs main living area. The kitchen was destroyed. The house was uninhabitable, but reparable. The Glasses were pleasantly surprised to find that the Silestone quartz surface that had covered their outdoor bar had survived Ike's wrath. Even though the countertop had been torn from its cabinet, broken into a few large pieces and tossed into the street in sections yards away and onto neighboring properties, it was salvageable and in remarkably good condition.

By late May 2009, the Glasses had completed repairs to their home and moved back after residing for months with family members in nearby Dickinson, Texas. They are especially pleased and proud to have been able to reassemble their Silestone bar, which suffered only a few nicks and scratches in spite of its tumultuous ordeal. The L-shaped bar stretches 12 feet long, bearing a few cracks that the Glasses say "simply add character."

Ginger and Neal Glass were so impressed with the durability of the Silestone product that they urged their insurance company to approve Silestone as the surface to replace the damaged laminate countertops in their kitchen. The Glasses chose Silestone in Diana Pearl, a shade of dark brown with beige speckles, for the kitchen countertops, which cover approximately 60 feet of surface.

"We had to have Silestone for our kitchen especially after seeing how well the product withstood the damage from the storm. The Microban antibacterial protective ingredient and 15-year warranty also appealed to us. We are thrilled and, honestly, amazed that all of the pieces of our Silestone bar could be recovered, and we are very much enjoying our refurbished kitchen. We've already hosted many family gatherings here. Our house looks even better now after Hurricane Ike," explained Ginger Glass.

Neal Glass became a Silestone fan in 2004 when he researched options for replacing countertop surfaces in the family's 42-foot power boat, which also survived the wrath of Ike while docked in a canal alongside the house in Tiki Island.